This duty was performed in ancient times at uncertain intervals, and usually had for its immediate object the giving an acquittance to the Mint Master, who was bound to the Crown by indentures to coin money of the prescribed fineness and weight. But the Coinage Act of 1870 provides for and establishes an annual trial, and since that date the Pyx has been brought to Goldsmiths’ Hall and tried annually.
In 1900, for the first time, at the request of H.M.’s Treasury, a Pyx from each of the Colonial Mints coining Imperial Coinage was tried.
Formerly a jury of competent freemen, summoned by the wardens, was charged by the Lord Chancellor, who subsequently received their verdict.
The jury is sworn by the Crown Remembrancer, who, the trial having been made and the verdict of the jury reduced to writing, attends at the Hall and receives them; after which their names are published in the Gazette.
The number of the livery is 150. The Hall is in Foster Lane.
Privileges of membership:
A freeman of the Company has no advantages as such, except that if he be a deserving man and in need of pecuniary assistance he is eligible to receive, and would certainly receive, aid from the Company, either by pension or donation.
When the Guild first had a Hall we know not, but the Hall has stood on its present site for upwards of 550 years.
About 1340, land and a house at St. Vedast Lane and Ing Lane[[2]] corner, formerly belonging to Sir Nicholas de Segrave, was bought. This land still underlies part of the present Hall, and was in the midst of the gold- and silver-smiths’ quarter. In 1407, Sir Dru Barentine built the Goldsmiths a second Hall, wherefrom a gallery led to his house. Within the great hall were arras hangings, streamers, banners, tapestried benches, worked cushions, and a screen bearing their patron’s (St. Dunstan’s) silver-gilt statue bejewelled. There were chambers, parlour, ‘say-house, chapel with coloured hangings, great kitchen, vaults, granary, armoury, clerk’s house, beadle’s house, assayer’s house. This Hall decayed. Borrowing money, they built a third and larger, 1635-40, Stone being surveyor.
After the Great Fire they repaired and partly rebuilt their Hall, 1666-69, raising money slowly. Jarman was architect. The buildings, brick and stone, surrounded a paved quadrangle entered through the Doric archway in Foster Lane.